Be careful what you wish for.

Satya Nadella is by most accounts the best person to lead Microsoft, currently the largest software company in the world.

"The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste," said Steve Jobs. That largely remains true.

Jobs called the computer "a bicycle for the mind." It immediately evokes a sense of freedom, magic, and fun.

Satya Nadella calls AI "a cognitive amplifier," which sounds like some kind of cool Excel formula.

Without taste being reinjected into Apple, it will remain uninspired and uninspiring, no matter who leads.

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rakejake 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I often wonder why Satya Nadella is so venerated on HN compared to say, Cook or Pichai. As innovators, MS lags way behind both Google and Apple. I can't think of one bleeding edge product released during Satya's tenure. Say what you will about Apple and Google, they still consistently put out products that make you sit up and pay attention. What has MS been doing other than squeezing the MS Office and Azure cash cows?

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AndroTux 27 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Nadella is obviously a very smart and successful business leader. He achieved his goals and transformed Microsoft into a very successful, healthy company. This is why I personally think he isn’t just a bland idiot like for example Steve Ballmer.

However, it’s clear that Nadella’s goals are everything but noble. He doesn’t care about the product, and he really doesn’t care about the customer. He only cares about number go up.

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sz4kerto an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

For example he made the back then very-very brave decision to completely getting rid of Windows as the leading Microsoft brand. He had a very clear vision for Microsoft and the industry even if the outcome is not super exciting products for you and me. He’s not squeezing Azure - he was the person who made Azure into what it is now.

So he changed Microsoft fundamentally - a very difficult thing for such a large company.

I don’t see Pichai changing Google so fundamentally. I admire Cook though.

	▲	rakejake 10 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		My point was more that MS hasn't had an industry changing product in a while. Google became joint-SOTA in AI and seems poised to take the crown with the next Gemini, and also in self-driving cars and quantum computing. They've kept their cash cows going while also being up to date on the tech that might upend their business model, so in a way they've cracked the innovator's dilemma which is definitely not an easy thing to do. A lot of HNers even wrote them off after ChatGPT and the disastrous Bard. Apple has a successful mass product in Airpods, a moonshot in Vision Pro and the insane Apple Silicon which they executed over more than a decade. Nadella did well in the last decade to consolidate the MS stack (Teams, Azure, Office) and to invest in OpenAI when he realized MS's internal efforts wouldn't yield the expected output. He has protected their turf and made some strategic acquisitions like Linkedin and Github to keep their lead in enterprise software. From the POV of Wall Street performance and stock returns, he is a definitely a great CEO but so are Cook, Pichai even Ellison.

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bitpush 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

One should not forget that Mr Cook was handpicked by Jobs himself. So if Apple is lacking taste or leadership, it is partly Jobs' own making

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gjvc 4 hours ago | parent [-]

yes but he was desperate (dying) when he made the choice

	▲	akmarinov 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		His dying was also part of his lack of taste, since he went with alternative medicine rather than actual medicine

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bn-l 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I thought that quote came from Bill Atkinson.

	▲	card_zero an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Hmm. Jobs used the bicycle metaphor extensively in this advert-interview thing: https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1050/0SgDLtymZpgcXEA7... Which (squinting) was printed in the WSJ in 1980: https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1148/1wXZ9t85eJnREeDw... But "bicycle for the mind" might be John Sculley, 1986: https://archive.org/details/apple-retro-books-collection/App... Unless of course Jobs said it earlier.

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makeitdouble 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Jobs called the computer "a bicycle for the mind." It immediately evokes a sense of freedom, magic, and fun.

The funniest part to me: I can't imagine Jobs on a bicycle. Perhaps when he was a small kid, but as far as I know he was notoriously on the jerky side of strongly motorized vehicles.

Which could perfectly align with his vision of the iPod and iPhone as powerful, but closed and restrictive and expensive ecosystems, replacing computers.

> no matter who leads

Then only the next CEO will have a chance to reinject taste into Apple, so it needs to happen at the same time.